


Agathe, like Dukat: Apology

by BrokenBlade



Series: Agathe, like Dukat [3]
Category: Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
Genre: Baby - baby - baby - baby - oh baby, Come back to me again, F/M, Fuck me out of my mind please, I can hardly wait to be with you again, I love you - I really do, I will be your daddy, I will be your father figure, What to say to make you come again?, You said you'd be coming back this way again baby
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-12
Updated: 2020-10-12
Packaged: 2021-03-08 04:07:55
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 11
Words: 17,703
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26959297
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BrokenBlade/pseuds/BrokenBlade
Summary: What, you thought Agathe would just wait for him? Crying on the floor? Topless?Bitch, please.Using the subject of 'apologizing', I metaphorically slap Agathe in the face with the contrast between toxic and healthy behavior. And there should be a little sex involved, because why else would I write anything? This is all because Gul Dukat makes me quiver.note: this story won't make sense without reading'Skinned'first...
Relationships: Dukat (Star Trek)/Original Female Character(s)
Series: Agathe, like Dukat [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1946584
Comments: 36
Kudos: 9





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [MaLady335](https://archiveofourown.org/users/MaLady335/gifts).



> As I said in the summary for 'Skinned', this won't be for everybody. I'm using Agathe to explore something raw and personal - but still within the context of this show that I love! - and not forgetting the original purpose of my writing _anything at all_ \- which was of course, to find a reason to fuck Gul Dukat, because he's so goddamned fuckable. Unfortunately he also drives me crazy in my real heart. He's...not the healthiest of desires, is he?  
>   
>  _repeated note here:_  
>  Every time somebody leaves a kudos: I want you to know that touches me deeply. ❤ It makes me feel like - somehow - this story speaks to you. Thank you. ❤  
>   
> For MaLady335 - _thank you for seeing!_  
>  For melitta4ever - _thank you for holding my hand so hard! I couldn't have done this without you!_  
>  For crystalcompassion - _thank you for filling my tank to get me to the end! Dukat Lust Forever!!!_  
>  For SparklyQuarians - _fucking thank you for fucking loving Gul Dukat with detail, action, passion, and fucking! Fuck Dukat Forever!!!_

Fuck this.  
  
_Fuck. This._  
  
On the floor again, in pieces. That’s where I ended my last account to you. On the floor again, so emotionally cracked that I still can’t remember what day it happened.  
  
_I’m not going to be his fucking prey and his fucking dinner-for-later and his fucking toy he can fuck off_  
  
On the floor I heard it, finally – the way he’d spoken to me from the beginning, pelting me with his short, arrogant imperatives.   
In Ops, at Quark’s, on his bed, in my quarters.   
  
_You too, Agat, come here. Give me your hands. Resist me. Squeeze your breasts. Come kiss me goodbye._ _Take your shirt off. Think about me while I’m gone._  
  
No. NO. Fuck this.  
  
Sometimes a girl gets tired of being pushed, cornered, leveled under the powerful person’s control and dominion, bracing for their wielding of force, taking it – as when Hera chased me into walls, into corners, seizing my hair, yanking my head.  
Sometimes a girl runs in a different direction.  
Sometimes she runs outside. I discovered _outside_ by accident one time when Hera chased me. I opened the back door of the house and ran into the yard. I’d have been cornered out there too if she had followed me. But she hadn’t followed me! And she never did after that, when I ran outside. I discovered a solitary game to play out there. I played for hours. It became one of my favorite ways to pass time.   
We had some old tennis balls, who knows why, no one played tennis. But we had the balls. And there was a wall, a big concrete wall. I would choose a spot on the wall, some imperfection in the concrete, some mark. I would choose that spot and throw a ball at it, aiming to hit that fucking spot. The ball would bounce off the wall and I’d lunge to catch it. I’d aim for the spot again. Throw the ball. Catch. Aim. Throw. For hours. It felt good, so good.   
And I wanted to do that now. I had a way to do it. I’d made friends with two dabo girls – Bajorans – Raila and Telara. They had introduced me to springball, inviting me to play with them on my days off. Turned out I was a natural at it, once I'd learned the variation on my throwing move, which in springball is more _hitting_ than throwing. It felt similar enough to throwing. I could fucking aim and hit-throw and catch. I wanted to go do that _right now,_ fucking hit-throw balls, catch them and fucking hit-throw them again.   
  
Fucking hit-throw Dukat out of my system, out of my body, out of my head, out, OUT.   
  
_Fucker._  
I’m not going to wait for you, _fucker._ I’m not going to think about you, _fucker._  
  
And I wanted to body check a guy. I didn’t want to play with any Bajoran female. I wanted a man. I wanted to _beat_ some man with my body. I wanted to _slam_ a man. The holosuite was the answer. Get me a _man_ to fuck up, a holographic man _with a body._  
  
I was ready to _pound a fucking man._  
  
I put my bra back on, my shirt back on, remembered shoes, and fled to Quark’s. Hopefully a suite was free. Hopefully the program was available. Yes, and yes. Good.  
This was an odd time of day for the sport – evening – most people were doing nightlife stuff – drinking, chatting, gaming, gambling. A blur of noisy cheer. I slipped through it all and entered the holosuite, the springball court. I ordered up an opponent.   
  
_Please specify parameters._  
Oh, I don’t know. Male. A little taller than me. Strong. Lithe. Quick. Let’s make him human. Dark hair, I guess. Unimportant. As long as he has muscles and a body.   
There he is. Good. Hi.   
_Let’s play, fucker._  
  
I’m fucking competitive, generally. I hate to be lesser than other people, at something I can actually _do_. I hate to be small. I prefer to be _good_. I like it when people notice it, when they say I’m _good_ at something.   
Playing springball, it’s my practice to aim to score. But not tonight. This wasn’t about scoring. This was about _rage._ The fucker had warmed up my body. He’d left it ready to sing.   
  
_He’d left it._  
Well now it was going to fucking sing.   
  
I started a game and pretended to play.  
  
_Just do it, fucker. Body check me, do it._  
He did it. Holographic man rammed my body.   
I dropped my glove.   
New game.  
  
I slammed his chest with my hands, striking him, pushing him. Switching between open-handed for slap-pushing, closed-fisted for hammering – whichever felt better to me – I backed my holographic fucker into the wall.   
He wasn’t resisting me, the fucker! _Damn you!_ I slapped his face. Hard. I slapped him again and again. He just took it.   
_Fucking resist me!_  
I clasped my hands together to make a double-armed club and pounded his chest with it, with my screaming hot weapon. _damn you damn you damn you_  
  
He needed to fight back. Seriously. This wasn’t going to work for me.   
“Computer, make him defend himself!”   
_Please specify the level of resistance._  
“I don’t know! He shouldn’t let me hit him! Make him try to stop me!”   
  
The computer made an impressively accurate guess. Holographic fucker grabbed my arms, spun me around, slammed my back into the wall, held me there with his manly strength. _Fucker_. This was better. I couldn’t hit him now.   
  
But I could knee him. I kneed him fucking hard in his package. He didn’t go down.   
  
_Oh my god!_ The computer didn’t know that was supposed to take him out?!   
_Holy hell._  
  
I kneed him again. Again. Again. Again.   
_Ohhhhhhh yes, FUCK yes,_ fuck _yesssss_ this was good.   
  
_FUCK you, fucker, fuck you, fuck you, FUCK YOU_  
  
“Agathe. _AGATHE!!_ Computer, freeze program! No wait – make that guy let go of her! NOW freeze program! Agathe, _what is going on?!_ ”  
  
The expression on Raila’s face was, I must say, comical in its bewilderment and horror. Clearly she’d expected to walk in on…anything else. Clearly she’d not expected to find me on a springball court with my back to a wall, held in place by my guy opponent, _apparently_ struggling to get free, kneeing him in _apparent_ self-defense, shouting at him, screaming obscenities – well, mostly just the one, my favorite.   
  
“ _Agathe, what happened?_ This program must be corrupted! Why did you keep it running? What if I hadn’t come in just now?”  
Oh yeah – she’d followed me in. Why?  
I asked her, breathing heavily. I didn’t mean to sound as cross as I did – I was just all riled up with my fucker.   
“Raila – what the fuck are you doing in here?”  
  
She blinked. I felt so bad. She’s the biggest sweetheart.   
“I saw you. I saw you talking to Quark. You didn’t look okay. I saw you go in here and I almost left you alone, but - you just – you didn’t look right. I wanted to see if you were okay. Are you? Are you okay?”  
  
I was so not okay. It wouldn’t make sense to try to hide it from my friend. Everything was on the surface anyway, everything on display. She could see the holographic manifestation, frozen in place, of my not being okay.   
  
I sighed heavily. I wasn’t going to cry – _not any more, dammit_ – but my eyes felt raw, wetly reddened with anger.  
  
“I’m not okay, Raila. _I am not okay._ ”  
“Oh, honey. What’s wrong?”  
  
_just everything, everything’s wrong_  
  
My eyes returned to my fucker who had let me go but was still in my face.   
  
I was _so_ glad I hadn’t made him Cardassian. Shit. That was a close one – it could have so easily gone the other way. I hadn’t given it much thought at all. Lucky choice.  
  
Raila saw me looking at him. She figured it out quickly. She’s sweet but sharp, that one.   
  
“This is about a guy, isn’t it…” She gasped. “Agathe! Did you – ?”  
  
She knows I’m not very active. She wants me to be. She wants me to _“get out there more.”_ She’s always telling me I’d have my pick of men, I could have any one I want.   
She looked excited for me.   
  
_Seriously? Raila. Look at me. Does this look like a good thing to you? Really?_  
But as I said, she’s quick. Now her face began to reflect a little more of my gravity.  
  
“You slept with him.”  
“No! I didn’t sleep with the fucker. I mean, I _didn’t sleep._ ”  
  
Fuck gravity, I guess. She squealed with glee and bounced on her toes.   
“Who is he, _who is he?_ Tell me, Agathe! You have to tell me!”  
  
I could have lied. I could have told her he was some random guy, someone I’d picked up at the bar, I didn’t remember his name. But I spoke too quickly, the fucker was on my mind, so much on my mind. I heard myself giving up just enough truth to make her hungry for more.  
  
“No. No, I can’t. I can’t tell you who he is. I’m sorry, Raila.”  
  
Oh, she looked so crestfallen and frustrated and absolutely ravenous. I wished I could give her the scoop, I really did. It was just her thing, something this juicy – she gets so excited, she’s so cute when she’s excited, so animated. She was so much fun to hang with.   
  
But this was something I couldn’t tell her, ever. Gul Dukat? One time Prefect of Bajor? The same man she’d seen a few weeks ago announcing that he would kill every Bajoran on the station? When she’d had to evacuate?   
No. Just fucking no.   
Although – she’d probably approve of my beating the shit out of his holographic representation. At least it would be clear which side I was on.   
Not the dick sucking side, for sure.  
  
“What did he do?”  
“What do you mean?”  
“I mean why were you beating him up? Why were you smashing this guy’s manhood with your knee when I walked in? He must have done something really awful.”  
  
Well, this seemed like a safe enough truth to tell.  
“He fucked me and left me, that’s what he did.”  
  
“Like a one night stand?”   
I knew Raila wouldn’t consider that such an enormously great offense. She looked puzzled.   
“No, not exactly. I mean sure, he wasn’t real clingy after the first night. He said he had ‘fun’ and then he left and I didn’t know if I'd ever see him again. I don’t know where he is, ever. There’s nothing _between_ us. We just fucked. But _oh my god_ Raila he was so fucking amazing. That’s my problem. I hate him for leaving AND I want him back. I feel so, like, I don't know, lame. _He is so fucking good_ in bed. I can’t stop thinking about it. This _fucker!_ ”  
  
Wide-eyed. “But you said it wasn’t a one night stand…?”  
  
“Yeah, he came back – he was on the station just a little while ago. Right before I came in here. It’s _why_ I’m here – I’m trying to feel better – I just wanted to beat up a guy to feel better. I mean, he came to my quarters unannounced. I hadn’t seen him since that one night and then there he was, out of fucking nowhere. _“Hello, Agat.”_ First thing he did was start kissing me – like _deep_ , with tongue – and feeling me up and I was so into it, I was so hot for him – and then he suddenly said he had to go, he had to _leave_ – and he _did_ , like it didn’t matter, like he didn’t care. He just left. He walked away. _I hate this fucker._ I don’t want to see him again. I don’t care if he’s the best fuck I’ll ever have in my life. I hate him. _I hate him, Raila._ ”  
  
Raila stood thinking about everything I’d told her. I saw a funny little light in her eyes.  
  
“Geez, Agathe…it’s weird that he left you like that but you’ve got me so curious…I mean… _if he’s that good_ …you sure you won’t tell me who he is?”  
  
“Trust me, Raila – you wouldn’t want to know.”  
  



	2. Chapter 2

I’m not kidding about not knowing what day that was. I get really mixed up when I’m upset enough. I get things out of order sequentially, chronologically, if I don’t want to _know_ those things.   
It goes back to the scary years with Hera after my father moved away. I think of my memories from those years as a collection of distinct, unconnected vignettes. Like a jumble of rocks in a sack. The vignettes tumble around in the sack, knocking and scraping together just enough to subtly scratch and resurface one another in their disorder and unease. It’s difficult to associate a memory with a specific age, unless I can connect a teacher or some other identifying timestamp. So I struggle to line them up in order.   
  
A counselor asked me once – she was on staff at Starfleet Academy – she asked me, “Agathe, how old do you feel like you are?” I considered carefully and answered – seven years old. She told me the number surprised her. She said that’s a very young age, especially for someone at the Academy.   
It didn’t seem so young to me. It was my age – I think – when my father moved out and Hera began to slap my face so hard. I didn’t feel _young_ when she slapped my face. I felt _inside myself,_ absorbing the physical shock _._ I didn’t feel like any age.  
  
I don’t only confuse my memories in time. I know there are other memories that I don’t even _see_ anymore, I don’t _remember_. I don’t know they exist.   
  
I didn’t know I was a natural at this – repressing memories – until I found out quite by accident, in high school. My creative writing teacher led our class in a simple exercise – what it was for, I have no fucking clue – maybe something about envisioning details of a space, to bring realism to a scene? Some bullshit, whatever.   
He said, “Draw two shapes on a sheet of paper, leaving space in between them. Both are your dining table at home. One of them is the table when you were six years old. The other is when you were twelve. Now draw chairs around each table, and mark which of your family members sat in each one. Draw them where they sat when you were six, and where they sat when you were twelve.”  
  
Six years old, I could do. Hera, Dad, sister, me. I drew a bench for myself. The other three sat in chairs.   
  
Now twelve years old.   
_Oh my god._  
  
I felt as if my body was flattened face forward against a black steel wall, with no access to the rest of my mind or to reality. When I tried to move the wall out of the way, I felt angry and terrified. My heart raced and pounded. I could not see that fucking dining table. I couldn’t _feel_ the table. I was flattened inside nothingness, nothing there but black steel wall, anger, and terror.   
So like a fucking nutcase, in front of everybody, I violently threw my pencil down on the desk, stood up with a crash, yelled _“I don’t want to do this!”_ and ran from the classroom.   
  
That’s how I learned that memory repression is real. Repression of _seeing, knowing_ – it’s real.  
  
But as you’ve read now, I haven’t repressed the memory of the fucker dropping by my quarters just long enough to leave me skinned. I know it happened, I just don’t know when the fuck it was.   
  
Clearly I’d erred by not heeding Kira’s entreaties, the morning after he’d had me. She’d told me not to come back to duty until I was ready. I’d thought I was ready, too soon. I’d been wrong. I’d been unfit for duty. I dragged myself over the coals by writing to you – that first account – while trying to work at the same time.   
  
I shouldn’t have done that. It just made things worse for me, for too long. It kept me feeling raw and oversensitive. It kept the fucker on my mind. And it placed me in Ops almost every day, in the room where I could hardly avoid seeing, feeling – remembering – _the floor._  
  
Plus there was the issue with Julian. I’ll come back to that.  
  



	3. Chapter 3

In the holosuite, I could hardly say I’d played much – if any – _actual_ springball with my holographic fucker. But he’d been a very good opponent nonetheless. He’d made me feel much better.  
  
And I showed up for duty in Ops the next morning feeling like a small window had cracked open inside my musty mind. I detected the soft coolness of fresh air curling through my thoughts, through the inner spaces of myself – it was something Raila had said to me. I wasn’t entirely on board with _everything_ she’d said, but part of it had resonated with me.  
  
“See Agathe, this is why I keep telling you to _get out there more._ So many guys would jump at the chance to have fun with you – not just this one ‘fucker’. It would be _good_ for you. I always thought for sure you’d at least hook up with Justin.”  
  
Okay, she’d misstepped. “ _Raila!_ Too soon!”  
She understood.   
  
“Sorry. But what I’m trying to say is – you don’t need to let this _one man_ make you so angry. You don’t _need_ to waste your energy hating him. Just take the good from him and move on. So the ‘fucker’ was a good lay. That’s great! Pat yourself on the back, Agathe – _job well done!_ And I’m sure it was ‘fun’ for you too. Remember _that_. Let go of the anger. He’s not worth it. Go find your next piece. _Go have more fun_.”  
  
Yeah, I wasn’t about to start sleeping around, for the reason I’ve already explained.   
  
That being said, I _did_ want more sex now, it was undeniable. Dukat had touched and fucked my _body_ , outside of my mind, and _fuck me, fuck me hard_ if I didn’t want more of that. I couldn’t _unfeel_ him. Daydreaming about a warm hard man is one thing. The invasive push of his thick hot treasure – that’s quite another. That was intoxicating. That was addicting. That was _oh my god did I want more of that._ I glanced over at Julian – he was in the room – no, as I said, I’ll come back to him.  
  
Raila was right. Why hold on to all this anger? Why worry about how the fucker had left me?   
I needed to just fucking _get over it._ I needed to get _myself_ back. Agathe. No more _Agat._  
  
Wasn’t I a natural at rearranging my thoughts, reframing my reality? Why not, like, _reward_ myself instead of rolling over and taking all this internal _punishment_ , this _angst_ about him?   
  
Why not think about what he had _given_ me? What had the fucker given me?   
  
_Orgasms_ , that’s what he’d given me. Fucking dizzying orgasms. I’d forgotten how to count higher than six with him, with his scaled treasure rubbing me under the waves. I’d forgotten how to be angry with him when his tongue was inside me, when he was sucking and nibbling me.   
  
_oh god I’d lost my anger with him that’s how I’d lost it_  
  
I could do that now, I could do it again. I could remember the orgasms and forget the anger. Let it float away on those waves, gently rock and float away.  
  
And you know what?   
_I was going to count the floor._ In Ops. He’d made me come on the floor.   
It was _my_ floor – _my fucking floor_ now. Mine.   
I walked over to the spot where he’d fondled me into oblivion. I stood on it. It was _mine._  
  
_I came here, right here. I came, I claimed, it’s mine._  
  
Okay so it had hurt too, and it had been frightening. That wasn’t quite as easy to forget. I glanced at Julian again – this time our eyes met – we both quickly broke it off, looking past each other as if we hadn’t connected. I knew what _he_ would call this piece of floor, if he’d been able to see what happened. I remembered the sound of his voice when I’d screamed and he’d shouted the fucker’s name.   
  
Julian would call it molestation.   
  
Well, no. That’s not what it was anymore. Its name was ecstasy now. This floor was _good_ to me, _nice_ to me.   
  
And besides, the fucker had made me forget the pain too. He’d fucked my pain away, hadn’t he. He had. He’d fucked _everything_ out of me. My pain, my ability to count, my anger.   
  
A fucking god was what he was.   
  
I watched Kira now, watched her crossing the room. What a nice ass. Dukat would be all over that if she’d let him.   
  
Kira, he may be a ‘sick fuck’ but I’m telling you he is so much more of a fuck than that – he is _some kind of a fuck all right –_ he is a _SICK FUCK_ he is so good. Oh, you should have him, honey. You didn’t feel him when he thought I was you.   
_oh god ‘Nerys’ you have no fucking idea, you should just take him, you should just have him, you should just let him fuck your brains out, your stress, you’ll never be angry again, you’ll never yell at anyone ever again_.  
  
You might be thinking that’s a strange way to get over someone, but come on, I haven’t had to do it very often.   
I just need practice.  
  
Okay, maybe now it’s time to come around to Julian.  
  
  
  



	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

>   
>  _I wanted to be with you alone  
>  I'm lost in admiration, could I need you this much?_
> 
> _Something happens and I'm head over heels_  
>  _I never find out ‘til I'm head over heels_
> 
> _Ah, don't take my heart, don't break my heart_
> 
> _don't  
>  don't_
> 
> _don't throw it away_  
> 

_Long_  
  
  
  
I didn’t tell you this before.   
Okay, that’s dumb – of course you’ll know I didn’t tell you this before.  
  
Let me start again.  
  
So…  
  
_Julian_ is one of those things I try not to _know_ about. One of those things I try to reframe.   
  
I remember when I first met him, face to face, first spoke with him, first held his undivided attention. It was in the infirmary, of course. I’d only recently met Raila and Telara, and they’d invited me to play springball with them, they’d taught me the game. I was already good at the aiming and throwing and catching. The new element was a living opponent, a separate body to collide with.   
  
I got a little banged up. I went to Julian.  
  
Do you remember how I described his eyes? Warm, dark, open, soft – like cashmere? Like cashmere I wanted to wrap myself in, to bury my face in – bury in gathered handfuls, my gathered handfuls of their softness?   
  
His eyes took my breath away. I’d never seen such beautiful eyes.   
_holy mother of God_  
  
And his bedside manner, as a doctor. I can't overstate how safe he feels. So gentle, so full of truth. So _clear_ , so open. So patient, so thorough. So caring, so attentive. So perceptive, so intelligent.   
  
I didn’t make a conscious choice to feel the way I did. I’m going to tell you how I felt, but you have to understand, I’m _reporting_ this feeling. I didn’t _choose_ this feeling, I didn’t make it up – this feeling _happened to me._  
  
I felt like I wanted this man to love me.  
I wanted _this man’s love_ – his love – _his._ The warmest, safest love I could ever dream might exist.  
I nearly drowned in this feeling. I was going under from the very beginning.  
  
I knew I wasn’t his type. I’d seen his type. I’d eaten with him at times – not just the two of us – sometimes I’d join his small group in the replimat, and we’d eat together, we’d converse. Not so very frequently, though. Usually when he joins someone to eat, it’s one-on-one and feels very uninterruptible. I wouldn’t try to insert myself.   
  
But anyway, I’d seen who he goes for – he’d been into Dax for a while. Then there was Leeta, one of the dabo girls. Shit, I am so not in her league. I don’t even belong to a league. I mean _damn_ – that woman, she’s hot.   
So yeah, just on that basis alone…I knew I should put my feeling out of its misery.  
  
But not being his _type_ – that was just scratching the surface. That wasn’t _truly_ what made me shy away, made me know I should mercy kill my longing for him.  
  
It was the sense – gnawing at my gut – that I’m not his _kind._ I’m not one of him, not one of _what he is_.  
  
He’s whole. I’m broken.   
He’s okay. I’m messed up.  
  
That’s a gulf between us, a chasm. He’s so far from me he could never hear me call for him.   
Even if he _could_ hear me, and somehow wanted me, his love could never cross the divide. Never. It could never _live_ on my side. It would die.  
  
So I just…I just tried not to long for him. Sorry about the word ‘long’. I know it’s cheesy, but I don’t know a better word.  
  
I _long_ for him.   
I mean, I did.   
I mean, I tried not to.  
  
It wasn’t easy. It’s still not easy. Remember the fantasy I described, in the infirmary? When he was holding me and I took him in my mind? In my fantasies he gets hot, he perspires, his hair gets damp and a little curly and my fingers play with it.   
  
_the fantasies I try to push away_  
  
It’s because I’ve watched him play springball. He plays it too. I’ve watched him from the bleachers in the holosuite program. He gets sweaty. I feel weak at the sight. I want to feel him like that, I want to hold him like that. So hot, so sweaty – so breathing hard. I want him on top of me like that. I want him moving over me, _in_ me, like that.  
  
I want to love him.   
_oh my god I want to love him_  
  
I try not to know this. I try to think of him as the doctor, only the doctor. He’s kind, he’s good, he’s safe. He’s always what he is. He’s Julian. It would break me if he wasn’t Julian.  
  
I try not to _know_ that I long for him.  
  
I failed, in the infirmary, the day after Dukat had me.   
I failed to not know. That’s why I did what I did.  
  
I didn’t really tell you what I did.   
I know you think I told you. I didn’t really. I reframed it, I softened the edges in my favor. I don’t know why. What’s the point of shading the truth I show to _you?_  
  
The worst of it is, I think I painted Julian in a very poor light. That should never be. _Never_.   
I need to tell the truth. I’m going to tell you the whole truth – I’ll confess what I know I remember.  
  
We can jump forward to the moment when my hands were on his chest, when he was holding my wrists, just before my nipples brushed his hands, when I glued my hands and eyes to his chest – afraid to look in _his_ beautiful eyes, so open, so full of truth. I was afraid to look in his eyes because I was afraid to believe what he was saying to me, to see it his way – I was afraid to believe I had been raped by Dukat.   
  
He almost swayed me. I could almost see it his way. And I couldn’t let that happen.   
  
I’ll just say it here and now. I don’t believe I was raped. I truly don’t.   
I wanted Dukat. That one smouldering truth is at the core of all the surrounding chaos and confusion.   
_I wanted Dukat._  
  
I’ll never deny it.  
  
But truth and beauty and safety is a potent force of its own, and Julian had me going under.   
I did try to put my head on his chest. I wanted to black out my world, I wanted to sink into the warm night. That’s what I was doing.  
  
But when my nipples brushed his hands, I lost my shit. I just…  
_oh my god I lost it_  
  
He _was_ trying to push me back. I wrote that I allowed our little struggle to press my nipples into his hands even more insistently, more pleadingly – that I moved myself against him in the most barely discernible fashion, just enough to call to him but not so much that I couldn’t deny that I was calling to him…  
  
That was bullshit.  
  
It was a reprise of my ‘ _feel them, fucker, feel them – they want you, feel them’_ from the night before. I _knew_ what the hell I was doing. I was _urging_ my breasts against his hands, I was rubbing on him. He let go of my wrists and wrapped his arms around me so he _wouldn’t_ be touching my breasts like that. I mean, so I wouldn’t be touching _him_ like that.   
I think he held me because he’s perceptive, because he knew I needed to be held, not pushed away. I’d have crumbled if he hadn’t held me.  
He held me tight. As if to keep me from falling, from crumbling away.  
  
I wrote that it was _so natural, so easy_ to take him in my mind – I’d moved my lips up to his neck, I’d kissed him, all over his neck, all over his dark shadowed neck, I’d woven my hands into his hair.  
  
Bullshit. For the most part.   
That is, much of it wasn’t in my mind at all.  
  
My arms didn’t stay locked between our bodies, bent with my hands on his chest. That was uncomfortable. I freed them. I raised them. I let my thirsty hands dive into the deep waters of his dark hair.   
  
I freed my lips, I raised them to his neck. I kissed him, all over. Not his lips, but very close to them, and all over his neck. I felt him, I breathed against him.  
I breathed my pleas against his skin, I begged him, _“please, Julian, pleeeeease…_ ”   
  
I came on to him so hard. I held him, I pulled him in to me as close as I could – against my body, against my uncovered breasts – I clung to him between my thighs, I rubbed, I kissed, I begged.   
  
I wasn’t consciously trying to seduce him.   
I just _broke._  
  
But thinking back on it, it seems that’s _exactly_ what I tried to do – I tried to seduce him so he wouldn’t hurt me with a truth I didn’t want to see, didn’t want to know.  
  
I’m going to say both motivations were true.   
I _broke,_ longing to sink into his kissing embrace – _and_ I also tried to seduce him in self-defense.   
  
Obviously I succeeded in turning him on, at a minimum. That much was visible.   
  
Honestly, if his body hadn’t responded to me in that way, _how much worse would that have been?_ If I’d squeezed him and rubbed on him and held his hair and kissed him and begged him and it had left him cold – _how much worse, how much worse?_  
  
I feel like he gave me what I needed. Nothing less, nothing more.   
  
I wrote that I wanted him to _please cross the line don’t cross the line._ That I wanted him _on the line_. On it. Not over it. Not behind it. On it.  
  
But forget the line. There’s no line. There’s only the chasm. I wanted him on my side of the chasm. From the moment I felt him on my breasts, I wanted him to plummet _to my side_ , to love me on _my side_ , even if my side is where people are broken.   
  
I tried so hard to pull him across to me.  
It would have hurt him, damaged him, sullied him. It would have made him be _what I am_ , made him be _my kind_.  
  
But I hurt myself. I felt his neck on my lips. I felt his lips on my forehead, his breath on my hair, my name in his whisper.   
_“Agathe…”_ in his whisper, on my hair.  
I can’t _unfeel_ it.  
I can’t unfeel _him_.   
  
I also couldn’t look him in the eyes after that, in those long raw days, those number of weeks that passed. And he couldn’t look at me.   
In Ops, if he happened to be there, we’d try to avoid each other’s eyes.   
But sometimes – sometimes our eyes would meet, and it didn’t feel okay. It was a problem.  
  
I believed I’d made him do something bad, something very inappropriate.   
  
I wouldn’t be able to take it much longer, the break between us, the disconnect, the shame, the guilt.  
  
I planned to talk to him. I wanted to try to explain.   
It would kill me, but so would this.   
  
I needed to apologize to him.   
Precisely when, I didn’t know. But soon. Very soon.  
  
I owed him an apology.  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So many words and she still can't just say how she feels.
> 
> Shaking my head.


	5. Chapter 5

_Apology_  
  
  
  
‘Apology’ is a dirty word in my life.   
  
Not ‘dirty’. What I mean is ‘bad’. It’s a bad word. I deliberately opened with the word ‘dirty’ so you would perceive how bad I mean when I say ‘bad’. I mean it isn’t a good word.   
It’s an angry word, an unjust word, a trapped and terrified word, a suffocating word.   
It is misery, it is burial, it is being buried alive.   
  
Of course I’m about to follow that introduction with a Hera story.  
  
I need you to understand how it feels to continue with another Hera story – now – at this point in time that we’ve reached together.  
  
I sense it, in my gut, gnawing as always – _anything in my gut will gnaw, that’s what things do in there_ – I sense that by now I’ve told you enough about Hera that if I write any more, you will be tired of it, full of it, sick of it. You will lay this down and walk away.  
  
It’s like when I’m skinned – anyone who sees me like that won’t want me.  
If I tell you more about what Hera did, then you will be sick of me.   
Won’t you?  
  
I just want you to know I feel that way.   
  
The thing is, I can’t write about apologizing to Julian without showing what ‘apology’ is to me. And I can’t show what ‘apology’ is, without telling a Hera story.   
  
I can’t go on to Julian without coming back to Hera.   
  
So here it is, here she is, and here is ‘apology’.  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
Before ‘apology’ was a word – not a bad word, just a word at all – before it was a word, it was a phrase.   
  
“I’m sorry”.  
  
Hera used the phrase, in the beginning. When she first began to slap me hard, out of nowhere, when I was little but didn’t feel little.  
  
She didn’t say, “I’m sorry I hit you.”   
But she _did_ say, “I’m sorry I got mad at you.”  
And the complete statement in its entirety, was this, “Agathe, I’m sorry I got mad at you. I’m under so much stress.”  
  
All of this changed.   
I remember a definite turning point, a transition to horrible, to ‘apology’.   
But my memory of the transition is a rock in my sack of memory rocks. So I can’t tell you when the turning point came.  
  
Here’s what changed.   
When Hera _“got mad”_ at me, she would explain to me why it was _my fault_ that she was mad.   
The default, foundational reason – if nothing more concrete came to mind – was because I caused her stress. When she was stressed, she got mad. When she got mad, she hit me.   
  
Following this logic, I had caused her to hit me.  
I owed her an ‘apology’ for causing her to get mad and hit me.  
  
She would hold my life ransom, for hours possibly.   
Cold. Thin-lipped.   
_“I’m waiting for an apology.”_  
  
We could decorate her default reason, ornament it, compose variations on the theme.  
  
Here’s an early variation. She would explain to me _how_ I had caused her stress – the thing I had done, or said. Or not done, or not said. I’ll just call it ‘ _the thing’_.  
Maybe – maybe I hadn’t actually done the thing. Maybe I would _tell_ her I hadn’t done the thing.   
Many times I spoke the truth, I hadn’t done the thing.   
Other times I lied, because I was afraid.   
Wrong move either way.   
At the least, _“I don’t appreciate your tone of voice. You owe me an apology.”_  
At the worst, _“Don’t backtalk me! I am your mother.”_ Slap. _“I’m waiting for an apology.”_  
  
But worse than my voice – _worse_ than my ‘backtalk’ – was the offense of _not agreeing_ that I had done the thing, _not agreeing_ that I had caused her stress, _not agreeing_ that she should be mad at me, that she had _“every right”_ to hit me.   
_“I am your mother.”_  
  
So to summarize, I would owe her an apology for  
_my voice_  
_my dissent_  
_my existing_  
  
This is why I write that the word ‘apology’ is burial, being buried alive.  
  
For years, she would trap me in logic quicksand, yell at me for struggling not to sink, hit me for crying for help.   
She _“had every right”_ to throw me in the quicksand.   
_“I am your mother. I’m waiting for an apology.”_  
  
A middle variation. She’d left the house and returned. I took too long to open the door for her. I was _“nothing but stress”_ to her, _“from the moment I walk in the door”_.   
I owed her an apology.  
  
A late variation. I was to prepare her dinner. I didn’t make what she wanted. Damn. Okay, next time I asked her what she wanted. Wrong move. She was too stressed to be spoken to.   
_shut up shut up! shut up – I don’t WANT to hear your voice_  
Quicksand. Logic quicksand.   
Serving what she didn’t want, was a transgression.   
Asking what she did want, was a transgression.   
No way out. Sinking. Wrong.   
Apology owed.  
  
It’s being buried alive, it’s a _march to the scaffold_ , to meekly approach the powerful person, to prepare your words, prepare your tone of voice, prepare your apology.   
  
Prepare the damning arguments, to damn yourself.  
  
This is how I was wrong.  
This is how I made you hurt me.  
_I’m sorry I made you hurt me._  
  
To deliver the damning arguments – _while hurting._  
  
Would it be strange to say I want to take a break and think about my fucker again, think about Dukat, right now?   
_I want to hold him, ride him, feel his scaled treasure inside me, kiss his beautiful face…_  
  
In the earlier years, I had access to one escape hatch.   
I could throw my father under the bus.   
  
_why do we use that expression? what’s a ‘bus’?_  
  
When I would give Hera a bad report about my father, she would be mad at _him_ , and I would be safe.  
  
So I betrayed my father.   
It’s tangled up with not hugging him, with not telling him I loved him.  
I betrayed him.  
  
So now I can write the definition of ‘apology’ that Hera taught me, that she beat into me.   
I can show you what ‘apology’ is, in my gut.  
  
‘Apology’ means: tell the powerful person what he or she wants to hear, so that he or she won’t be mad.  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
Was that too much? Did it take too long to return to Julian?  
  
I don’t want to use the word ‘apology’ in connection with Julian. The word is too horrible.   
But I can say ‘apologize’, that will be okay.  
  
I wanted – I intended – to apologize to Julian for what I had done.  
  
New game.   
It would be new, to apologize because I believed I had done wrong.  
  
I wouldn’t be preparing arguments.  
I would be…I would be…I would be telling him what I had done. Telling him I was wrong to do it. Telling him I was sorry I had done it.   
  
Because _I had done it_.  
Because _I had been wrong to do it._  
Because _I was sorry._  
  
I wouldn’t be trying to make him not be mad at me.  
I didn’t even think he _was_ mad at me.   
I thought he felt bad. I thought he might feel like it was _his_ fault.   
And it wasn’t.   
_It was my fault._  
  
All I wanted was to restore our connection. No matter how small.   
_I want to love him_ but if all I can have is a connection – the smallest of connections – with Julian, then that’s what I will hold, that’s what I will treasure.  
  
_I want to love him._  
That hurts.  
  



	6. Chapter 6

“Telara thinks she saw your fucker!” Raila giggled.  
  
She and Telara were in my quarters, having swung by to get me so I could walk to Quark’s with them. They were going to work, I was going for my weekly drink and sit-around.  
  
_What?!_  
  
I focused wide, uncomprehending eyes on Telara.   
  
Telara grinned wickedly. “Yeah. He _had_ to be your fucker. Who else could you be so angry with? I’d beat him up too, if I got my hands on him. I would _love_ for any Cardassian guy to try pinning _me_ against a wall. I’d smash his jewels just like you did.”  
  
_Jewels?_  
_Like I did?_  
  
_Cardassian?!_  
  
“Look at her face,” Raila was laughing even harder now. “Agathe, relax! I was just telling Telara about your _unusual_ springball practice the other day.”  
  
These women tell each other everything. They’re childhood friends, almost sisters. Actually, if they’re sisters, then I feel like their adopted sister. They’d taken me in when I was new here, when they’d noticed me hanging around Quark’s drinking at tables alone, people watching, shy. They’d been working, of course, but they would keep stealing over to wherever I was sitting, especially on their breaks, when they would giggle and talk to me, drawing me out. I’ve always wound up being friends with their type – forward, outgoing people who find it so magically easy to open their mouths and release words. It takes the conversational pressure off of me.  
These girlfriends were more special to me than most, having been my social welcome to the station, including me in their regular springball routine. By adding me, they’d ruined their perfect pair, making it an odd-numbered trio – but they’d never minded. They’d worked out how to rotate our play time. They’d always seemed to like me, to like being with me, talking with me, doing stuff with me. That’s a straight shot to my heart. I’m so fond of them, grateful for them. I probably love them. But I would never tell them that. I know how they’d tease me for being so sappy about it.   
  
I wasn’t surprised that Telara knew about my holographic fucker. In fact I expected that she knew everything I’d told Raila about my real fucker.   
  
Excuse me, not _my_ fucker. _The_ fucker. _The_ fucker wasn’t _my_ anything. He’d made that clear when he’d warmed me up to sing, ordered me to skin myself, touched me as if to directly transport me to delicious fucking heaven, and then left me like a meal he’d tried a couple bites of before deciding he wasn’t so hungry after all.   
  
_Maybe_ he’d come back later to finish me – but he didn’t know when – so I should just keep myself hot and uncovered on the plate, waiting for him like a good little dish, waiting for him to come back and eat me when he was ready, lick my sauce when he wanted more.  
  
_Fuck that_ , in case you’ve forgotten. Fuck that, _FUCK HIM._ But not literally, not this time. Which time? No time. Never. Not fucking him.The fucker.  
  
So now Telara knew about him too. That was okay. I didn’t mind if she knew I’d had a fling. She’d be happy for me, like Raila was. Proud of me, even.   
  
But _Cardassian?_ Holographic fucker had been human. Where had _Cardassian_ come from? That hit much too close to home. I was afraid to ask, but I needed to know.  
  
I laughed, bravely. _Shit, I heard that – it sounded fucking nervous._  
  
“Okay, but what do you mean, ‘Cardassian’? I wasn’t beating up a Cardassian, Raila.”  
  
“No, but if your fucker _was_ Cardassian, then Telara would _totally_ get why you’d want to fuck him up. You know how much she hates them.”  
  
“But…I never sleep with anyone…”  
  
“You said you _‘didn’t sleep’_ with him,” Raila helpfully reminded me.   
  
Telara snickered.  
  
“Let me finish!” I pleaded. “Okay, I hardly ever _‘don’t sleep’_ with anyone – so why – why would you even _think_ I would _‘not sleep’_ with a Cardassian? That’s a leap. That’s a _big leap!_ ”  
  
Telara rolled her eyes. “Again _relax,_ Agathe. We don’t actually think you fucked a Cardassian.”  
_Whew._  
  
“We’re only talking about it because we saw one walking past your quarters when we were coming to get you.”  
  
_oh my god what?!_  
“Oh my God! _What?!”_  
  
Shit, _now_ I’d overreacted. I mean I _had_ to be more careful. Raila was sharp. I didn’t want to get her mind working on this. She was already beginning to focus her eyes on me a little too closely for my comfort.  
  
“Seriously Agathe, _lighten up!_ It was just some Cardassian man walking down the corridor who happened to pass by your door.”   
  
Telara nodded. “Yeah, it looked like he heard us coming and hurried off in the other direction.”  
“Right, especially when he heard Telara say _‘hey, maybe that’s her fucker!’_ ”  
  
“You _said that?!_ Did he hear you?”  
_dammit, why couldn’t I just calm the fuck down?_  
  
“Yeah, I think he heard me. It looked like he hesitated and wanted to see who was behind him. Actually he did turn his head a little bit, as he went around the corner. I saw part of his face. They’re all so fucking ugly.” Telara emphasized her remark with a shudder.  
  
_actually he’s fucking beautiful_  
  
_that is, if he was the man that she saw…_  
  
Now what? How was I going to get out of my quarters? Because I wanted out. Oh my God. What if that had actually been _him_? What if he came back? _Now?_ With my friends in here?  
Shit! We needed to go!  
But what if he was at the door when we opened it?  
_Fuck!_  
  
Well, I had one choice, right? Freeze and maybe get caught, or _run_ and maybe get caught. Logically, it made more sense to run. Especially because the dabo girls needed to get to work. That’s why they’d come. So we could go.   
  
Okay then – we would go.  
If he was at the door when we opened it, well…I’d just have to worry about it then. Don’t borrow trouble. Don’t worry about it until it happens. Just open the fucking door.  
  
I gathered my limp and quivering wits and took a deep breath, mentally rehearsing a convincing tone of voice, a dismissive air.  
  
“Well, that’s weird. I wonder what business brought him to the station. Whatever. Why don’t we just go? I don’t want to make you both late.”  
  
“Good plan,” Raila agreed. She and Telara headed straight for the door. It opened for them. They stepped out into the corridor. They looked back at me. I hadn’t moved an inch.   
  
Raila rolled her eyes.  
“Well – are you coming, Agathe?”  
  
I laughed in relief. “Sorry. Yeah. I’m coming.”  
  



	7. Chapter 7

I stood at a little table nestled into the chaotic sphere of boisterous dabo action, sipping my beverage. I hadn’t changed my usual order – a whiskey sour, no ice. I like it room temperature rather than ice cold, because I enjoy the feel of the whiskey and the sweet-and-sour on my tongue. I like to let each sip linger in my mouth, just as Dukat had done when he’d explained what my name means in Cardassian.   
  
I had no intention of abandoning one of _my_ favorite pleasures just because _he_ liked it too, just because it made me think of him, made me remember the sight of him sucking me off his fingers, telling me he liked the flavor-feel of _‘agat’,_ liked it in his mouth. I wasn’t going to think about that. Never mind that I could think of nothing else. It had fucking rattled me – the idea that he might be on the station again, that he might have tried to come see me, come eat me, come lick me.  
  
My glass was empty by the time Raila and Telara came over on their break and joined me at the little table. I don’t know how he does it, but Quark is very attentive as a bartender and never leaves anyone’s glass empty for long – somehow he just _appears_ when a drink is finished or nearly so. He did that now – he suddenly _appeared_ at the table with us, as if he’d phased into our reality just at this spot, just at this moment.  
  
He was already speaking as I glanced at his eyes and realized I’d seen him shoot me that peculiar look before – that _funny sort of look_ – the night he’d sold me out to Dukat.  
  
“Agathe, I see you’re ready for a refill.”   
  
He leaned into our space conspiratorially.  
“I was surprised you didn’t order a double shot,” he purred. “Didn’t you know Gul Dukat is here tonight?”   
  
He fixed his beady eyes on mine, two round and greedy phaser beams.   
A slow, lascivious wink.   
_“I think he’s looking for someone again.”_  
  
I had no words. I froze. I couldn’t look away from his horrible eyes. I couldn’t even blink.  
  
Telara repeated the name. _“Gul Dukat?”_  
  
Oh, shit.   
  
Her tone of voice recalled something to my mind, something I’d known about her – about her family – something that hadn’t quite hit home until this moment.   
  
She hates Cardassians much more than Raila does, because her family had suffered more during the Occupation. Two of her brothers and an uncle had labored on Terok Nor, in ore processing. One brother had nearly died of heat stroke when the station’s environmental controls had malfunctioned, making the temperature perfectly suitable for Cardassians while dangerously life-threatening for the Bajoran ‘workers’.   
  
I’d heard Telara swear – more than once – that had her brother died, she would have held Gul Dukat personally responsible, as Prefect, as commander of the station. He’d dragged his feet, taking far longer than he should have, to see to it that the environmental problem was corrected. His delayed action had needlessly prolonged the Bajoran population’s suffering – most especially in the brutal heat of ore processing. He couldn’t be bothered with an issue that didn’t affect him personally, that he couldn’t feel for himself.   
  
Thankfully Telara’s brothers and uncle had survived their time on Terok Nor. But she – _she_ is someone who truly recoils at the sight of Cardassian men. That will never change. She’s unable to wish them anything other than ill will.   
  
And the very idea of _Gul Dukat_ is abhorrent to her. She’ll never be one to ‘ _see past his exterior and regard the man himself.’_  
Wait – I’m wrong. She _does_ regard the man himself. She _hates_ the man himself.  
  
“ _Again?_ ” she asked Quark. “When was he here before?”  
  
“Didn’t you know?” he answered her. “Agathe knew. Didn’t she tell you? He was here a few weeks ago when the station was almost destroyed. When you thought you should evacuate.”  
  
I finally wrenched my eyes off of Quark’s face and dared a glance at Telara’s. Her eyes were beginning to look redly wet, dangerous.   
  
“You mean when his messages played on all the screens in here? When he said he was going to kill us all? When he said he was going to gas my uncle and my brothers? And everyone’s families?”   
  
I knew it was coming. Yes, there. She turned to me.   
“Agathe? _You_ knew he was here?”  
  
Quark snorted. “ _Knew_ he was here! Sure, you could say she _knew._ ”  
  
I had to unstick my mouth and break in. I needed to take control of this narrative – somehow – before it hurtled off the broken nightmare track.   
I made a valiant effort. I spoke words.  
  
“Yes Telara, Gul Dukat was here. He beamed into Ops. He figured out the deep shit we were in, and tried to use it as leverage to – to gain some kind of advantage. I don’t know what he wanted, specifically. He spoke with Major Kira privately. But he wound up being unable to leave, and his command codes didn’t work anymore, so he had to try to help us figure out how to save the station so he wouldn’t die here too.”   
  
I twisted my mouth in begrudging acknowledgment and rolled my eyes.  
“He _did_ help us, actually.”  
  
_“Oh – he helped us!”_ Telara mocked, as if her opinion of him had undergone an instantaneous reversal. “I suppose we owe him our _lives_ , then. Maybe we should find him and drop to our knees to pay _tribute_.”  
  
“I think Agathe may have done that already.” Quark offered.  
  
“Really? Did you actually _talk to him?_ ” Raila asked me.  
  
_yeah I talked to him – I yelled at him and humped his leg and later I told him he was fucking beautiful and –_  
  
“Well yeah, I had to. I had to interact with him, there wasn’t any choice.”  
  
Quark widened his opportunistic grin, flaunting pointy teeth as he cross-examined me – exaggerating his words as if each was a tasty nibble of a forbidden delicacy.  
  
“You – _‘had to’ – ‘inter’…’act’_ – with Gul Dukat?”   
  
Lowering his voice – in pitch rather than volume.  
  
“Are you telling us you didn’t – _ENJOY? – your, heh, ‘INTER’…’ACTION’ –_ with Dukat, Agathe?”   
  
He chuckled. “Did you hear that? _‘Agathe’…like ‘Dukat’_ …”   
  
_what would be the quickest most effective way to kill him right now?_  
  
I felt my heart beating at an alarming rate, rapidly approaching a losing-my-shit level of agitation. My mouth opened – my voice flew out – too panicked.   
  
“NO Quark, I DIDN’T enjoy interacting with him. That’s why I ordered the double shot that night. He _unnerved_ me. He pissed me off. He fucked me up – _the fucker!_ ”   
I punctuated the epithet with a slam of my fist on the table. My newly refilled glass rattled, the drink sloshing inside it uneasily.  
  
And now as I heard myself, I knew it was coming – yes, there – I saw a spark of connection in Raila’s eyes.   
  
_“The ‘fucker’?”_  
  
“Exactly that.” Quark agreed, nodding his ugly head. “I had to throw him out of my bar that night! I could hear – very clearly – just how he _unnerved_ his lady friend on the balcony. Between you and me, she must have been… _very unnerved…_ to be doing all the things he was asking her to do for him. _”_  
  
Shaking his head, wide-eyed, so scandalized. “She did everything he begged for – _everything_ – right out in the open!”   
  
He grimaced and clutched his ears as if in pain.  
  
“I can’t get the sound of it out of my ears,” he moaned, “the sound of Gul Dukat’s voice – _‘suck me, suck me – oh god suck me please!’ –_ if only I’d stopped them sooner before I was forced to listen to any more of it – _’…lick me…lick me…’_ ”  
  
_“_ Lick him? Suck him? Gul Dukat? _On the balcony?”_ Raila drank this in with wide eyes of her own, enthralled.  
  
“But that doesn’t sound right.” Telara challenged.   
  
“That’s why I told him to get a room!”  
  
Telara shook her head. “No, I mean it doesn’t sound right that a Cardassian would say ‘oh god’.”  
  
“You might be right – oh yes I remember now – it was more of an ‘ah’ then an ‘oh’ – more like _‘suck me, AH god, suck me’_ – “  
  
I felt the blood drain from my face – an odd sensation, a sudden chill. I knew my wits weren’t quick enough to rescue me with words. No, actually my wits _were_ quick – they’d quickly abandoned me. All I had left was instinct, which shouted at me to run.   
  
I turned to do just that and ran directly into Julian. He’d been standing right behind me – I had no idea for how long.  
  
“Whoa!” He caught me by my elbows. “Agathe, please wait, don’t go.”  
  
He fixed hard, forbidding eyes on Quark across the table – no cashmere, no soft goat’s wool – only steel wool for the Ferengi.   
  
“Don’t you need to go _tend bar_ instead of standing here harassing your customers with your _obscene stories?_ ”  
  
His face was close to mine, as he held my elbows. I noticed his upper lip, curled in irritated disgust – actually I noticed _both_ of his lips.  
  
_God help me, they were beautiful too – why – why did everything have to hurt?_  
  
I hadn’t _seen_ it before, hadn’t seen their beauty, those lips – those curved, padded lips. Oh, I wanted to trace their outline with my thumb – now, _right now._ They were so well-defined, maybe they’d bring order to my universe if I could just _feel_ them, just smooth my thumb over them, just push on the bottom one, push on the fullness, the center of it, nudge it open…  
  
_kill me now, it all hurts._  
  
Quark got the message, glaring at Julian with resentment, clearly reluctant to slink away at any alpha male’s snarl, but too business-minded to disagree that he should, in fact, tend bar.   
  
“It’s time for you girls to get back to work,” he snapped at Raila and Telara.  
  
As the three of them dispersed, I closed my eyes and sighed in relief.  
  
_Thank you, Julian_.  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Terok Nor's malfunctioning environmental controls was not my idea!
> 
> I borrowed it from ShevatheGun's He Who Cannot Put His Thoughts On Ice from her series The Mistress: The Rise and Regrets of Tora Naprem.
> 
> I hope she doesn't mind! I thought it was such a perfectly happenable thing, to happen. And it sure felt true to how Gul Dukat might have handled it.


	8. Chapter 8

_Julian_  
  
  
  
“Agathe, I’ve been wanting to talk to you. Is now a good time?”  
  
I didn’t know if now was a good time. _God, my heart couldn’t slow down, looking at him._ But I’d been wanting to talk to him, too. Soon, very soon. Soon could be now. Now could work.  
  
“Yeah. I’ve been wanting to talk to you, too.”  
  
At least we could look at each other. We were looking at each other right now, not looking away. _Oh God._ Nerves.  
  
“Let’s go where it’s not so busy.” He turned and led me around the bar to a small table off to the side, in a less frenetic pocket of the larger area, as far from the dabo action as we could go.  
  
We sat. I’d forgotten my second drink. No matter. My stomach was churning far too much to put anything in it. My face still felt the odd chill of drained blood.   
  
The chill meant something was breaking through my defenses. I feel cold and I shiver whenever I talk to anyone about _real_ things, about things I feel deeply, things that are uncomfortably true. I was here to have just such a conversation with Julian. It made me want to throw up.  
  
He’d said he wanted to talk to me. That meant he could go first. Thank God.  
  
I looked at him and waited.   
  
It would have been so much easier to roll with him on the floor, in his arms, in the dark, in some dark reality where Apollo could tackle Daphne – but that just wasn’t available, that escape just isn’t ever available, it can’t be. I wished it could. I just wanted to be caught. Right now I wished Julian could tackle me.  
  
“Agathe,” he began.  
  
I continued to wait. I began to see that it wasn’t easy for him either, what he wanted to say to me. I watched his eyes.  
  
“Agathe, I want to talk about – what happened.”  
  
_cold, so cold, shivering i want to love you julian_  
  
Was it harder for him when I watched his eyes? I didn’t want to look away. I wanted them to be mine to see forever. I wanted to look.  
  
“I don’t expect you to – I can’t, I can’t expect you to – to accept it, but – Agathe,”  
He stammered, he looked at me, pained.   
_“I owe you an apology.”_  
  
_my lips, trying to form the word, trying – ‘what?’ – can’t do it, trying, can’t_  
  
He whispered. “I was wrong to touch you.”  
  
_but julian all i want is for you to touch me – all i want – all i want_  
  
He closed his eyes.  
_“I should never have touched you. I’m so sorry, it was wrong of me.”_  
  
What was happening to me, I was going to cry, sort of cry, it was deeper than crying. I closed my eyes too. I covered my mouth with my hand, breathing shakily.  
  
I opened my eyes again.   
“Julian.”  
  
He had to see me.   
“Julian.”  
  
He opened his eyes. He looked. Oh God, _he_ was hurting. No. No.  
  
My turn to whisper.  
_“Julian, I wanted you to touch me. I wanted it.”_  
  
_how the fuck did i even just say that_  
_oh my god it was true i just wanted him to know_  
  
He was shaking his head.   
“Agathe, you couldn’t have known what you wanted.”  
  
What was this crying without crying? My tears were stuck, stuck behind where they usually form. I felt beside myself, sort of not in myself.  
  
“I wanted you, Julian.”  
_oh my god_  
  
“Agathe, you were too vulnerable. You came to me – injured. _Injured,_ Agathe.”  
“I know. I know I was injured.”  
“You were _injured_ , and I – “  
  
_oh god my shivers, maybe my shivers were tears, maybe i was crying, i was shivering julian catch me hold me_  
  
“It’s because I gave myself to you, Julian – I gave – _I offered you myself. I wanted you.”_  
I covered my face with my hands now. No, I put my head on the table. How was I going to talk to him, like this? Why was I doing this?  
  
_“Agathe – “_  
  
I raised my head, lowered my hands. Dammit, hear me.  
  
“ _Julian_. I’ve been wanting to apologize to _you._ I know what I did. _I know what I did._ I threw myself at you. I begged for you. I begged for you _with my body_. I kissed you, _I rubbed my breasts on you._ I pulled you in to me, I locked you between my legs. _I needed you._ It’s not your fault. I did it to _you_.”  
  
“No Agathe, you can’t be blamed for _anything_ you did! Anything!”  
  
_what? no_  
  
“You couldn’t have been more vulnerable than you were that morning. I was telling you that I thought you’d been _raped._ Your shirt was open to me. _You were bruised.”_  
_I knew that look in his eyes, that self-damning look. I knew that look._  
“Agathe – I failed you _. I failed you, Agathe._ “  
  
“ _Why?_ Because I jumped you and you didn’t throw me off? Do you know how that would have killed me? Do you know how much I needed you to hold me? Do you have any idea? You didn’t fail me. You didn’t fail me at all. You gave me what I needed – what I _needed,_ Julian.”  
  
“But I shouldn’t have. It wasn’t the time or place, _it was wrong._ ”  
“But I made you do it!”  
  
“No! No, _you couldn’t have!_ ”   
“I _made_ you touch my breasts.”  
“Agathe…”  
  
Whispering. “I gave them to you. _I gave you my breasts._ ”  
Softly conceding. “I know, I can’t forget them.”  
  
Oh, he heard himself say that. He closed his eyes and shook his head.   
“Oh Agathe, don’t – oh, forgive me, forgive me, _please…_ ”  
  
_“Julian, I can’t forgive you for that.”_  
He winced, shutting his eyes even tighter.  
  
_that’s not what i meant_  
“That’s not what I meant. Julian. Julian.”  
  
He looked.  
  
_“_ I can’t forgive you for anything. _There’s nothing to forgive you for. Nothing._ ”  
“Agathe, I think you’re wrong. I think you don’t see it.”  
  
_what don’t I see? just love, just love in your eyes, for me, I don’t see it, the love that could reach across the divide, the love that could live_  
  
He reached across the table for my hands, he took my hands and held them, so warm. I hoped he didn’t think mine were cold for him. I was so warm for him, but my hands were so cold for this talk.  
  
“Agathe, you’re not supposed to be able to _make me_ do anything. Or make me _feel_ anything. What I do – what I feel – _is my responsibility._ Nothing I did was your fault. Nothing I _felt_ was your fault. None of it _could_ be your fault. _I’m_ responsible.”   
  
_there – there was the water in my eyes – soon I wouldn’t be able to see his beautiful eyes through the water –_  
  
His beautiful voice. “Agathe, you said you wanted to apologize to me. I can never accept it – I can never accept an apology from you. You can _never owe_ me one. I’m the one who owes it to _you_ , I will _always_ be the one to owe it to _you._ ”  
  
I was beginning to hear him. Maybe not see him through my tears, but _hear_ him. I was hearing that he would never take a _reason_ from me, never take one of my self-damning arguments and twist it into a defense, an excuse for himself. He wouldn’t even _hear_ my arguments. He would only ever speak truth to me.  
  
I listened to this truth from his beautiful lips. I could hear it, I could begin to hear it his way. It was freeing in a way I wasn’t used to experiencing, but _damn_ if it didn’t hurt as much as any other piece of truth.  
  
_why so far why so far julian how can i ever reach your side_  
  
I wept. I couldn’t not weep. Love was near to me but so far. Love held my hands. I don’t mean romantic love. I mean good love, _goodness._ This man was good to me. I wanted to love him but I didn’t think I had it in me, what he had, what he had in him. How could I love him with his kind of love? No one had loved _me_ with it, no one had taught _me_. How could I give it to _him_ , give it _for_ him?  
  
I cried. I hate to be seen crying. The last time he’d held my hands like this, I’d wanted to cover my face. I hadn’t been able to, because he’d been holding my hands in his, between us. Just as he was holding them now. But I hadn’t wanted to be seen, so I’d looked away from his eyes. I’d looked to my right – it had been the safer side that day – I’d looked to my right.  
  
I looked to my right again now, beyond Julian, across the bar, over there, over there.  
  
  
_Over there was Dukat._  
  
  
Was he? My eyes swam with water. Maybe it was just a dark Cardassian-shaped figure standing over there watching, watching us. Watching Julian hold my hands while I cried.  
  
No…no, that was he. That was Dukat. Our eyes met. I think they did. Mine had water in them. Oh god. Maybe my heart would stop. Too much. Overload.  
  
I looked past him. As Julian and I had done in Ops, looking past one another. I looked past Dukat’s shoulder. I saw Telara at the dabo table. She saw me too. She saw me crying with Julian.  
  
_Oh God I don’t know where to look_  
  
The last time Julian had held my hands like this, while I cried, I’d bent over, I’d bent over our hands in my lap, I’d rested my forehead on our hands, he had lifted one of his hands to my hair and stroked it until I stopped crying.  
  
I bent my head over the table now, I rested it on our hands. I didn’t expect him to stroke my hair this time. He had just apologized for touching me when I was vulnerable. He wouldn’t do it again now.  
  
He didn’t. He’s safe. I can’t overstate his safeness. I want to love him.  
  
When I felt calmer I lifted my head again. Julian reached over as he’d done last time, picking away hairs that had stuck to my face where my tears had dried.   
  
I smiled at him, feeling weak, drained.   
  
At least I could look at him now.   
I would hold that, treasure that.  
  



	9. Chapter 9

_Door_  
  
  
  
_Hera stood at the door waiting, each time my father returned me to the house_  
_Better not be late – he’ll get in trouble_  
_Better not love him – I’ll get in trouble_  
_don’t show it – don’t love him_  
  
Knowledge gnawed at my gut. I knew. I knew he waited at the door, at my quarters. I walked the corridors alone, knowing what I would see when rounding the corner to mine, the path to my door.  
  
I felt the dream in my depths. Tall, darkly clothed Chris A. standing in the path between my face and Hera’s watching eyes. Huddling inside the refuge of his arms, I wouldn’t need to enter the house. His body shielded my blooming desire for him from her eyes.  
  
But Julian hadn’t held me, and Dukat’s watching eyes had spied me with my defenses down, shivering, crying, bending my neck to rest my head on my one connection – my one grasping hold on my tall dark shield.  
  
He had seen.  
  
I felt like I was in trouble.   
Marching to the scaffold.   
  
No, not marching.  
Moving. Moving my feet, ever forward.  
  
The feeling of being _in trouble_. It exists out of time. It drains the blood from my face. It is frightening. At times it is angering.   
  
I shouldn’t fucking _be_ in trouble.   
_I didn’t do anything wrong._  
  
I walked the corridors with purpose of my own. Gather myself. It doesn’t fucking matter if he’s waiting with thin lips, if I’m making him wait, making him stand at my door for too long. It doesn’t matter if he plans to interrogate me. It doesn’t fucking matter. He doesn’t hold title to me, he has no ownership of me. I owe him nothing. Who fucking cares if he’s mad. Gather myself. Gather myself.  
  
I rounded the home corner, heart pounding near my throat.  
  
He leaned against the wall in a casual pose, arms crossed, one knee bent, foot propped behind him. So goddamned fuckable.  
  
_oh god in heaven i want to fuck him_  
  
I reached my door.  
  
Casually posed, his body.  
Not so much, his face.  
  
Thin lips, of course.  
Hard eyes, for sure.  
  
Gather. Gather myself.  
  
We eyed one another, at my door. Silence, thick as the tension.  
  
Finally. “Well, are you going to invite me in? I’ve been waiting.”  
  
_how the hell else am i going to fuck you, fucker?_  
  
I pressed the button to open the door. I gestured in its direction with a tip of my head, a shrug of my eyebrows. I let him walk in first. I felt more gathered behind him than I did ahead of him.  
  
We advanced into the room and positioned ourselves to face each other. One of us would need to open this dialogue, whatever the fuck this was. I wasn’t about to do it for him. He’d fucking left me. He could fucking readmit himself.  
  
I saw something sharp in his hard eyes. Not menace, but belonging to the same family. Sharp and focused, narrowed.  
  
He drew breath and spoke, blinking his eyes with cool control.  
  
“I see _the doctor_ has had you now.”  
  
  
  
_You._  
_Fucker._  
  
_you don’t TOUCH Julian, mother fucker_  
  
_yeah that’s right, the doctor has me_  
_he doesn’t need to HAVE me to have me_  
_he has me like YOU CAN’T, like you’ll never be able to_  
  
  
  
I was gathered now. “So what if he has?”  
  
He eyed my form pointedly and shrugged a little, as if the topic was trivial.  
  
“I just find it a little surprising. I’ve seen his women. _You…_ well, let’s just say you _’_ re an unexpected – _deviation –_ from his standard.”  
  
  
_I’ve already given my breasts to Julian_  
_stab again, mother fucker_  
  
  
  
I smirked, a dark twist of my lips.   
I returned his shrug with a lift of my eyebrow.  
  
“So?”  
  
“Well, I wouldn’t have thought he’d be _your_ type, either.”  
  
“And how the _fuck_ do you think you know what my type is?”  
  
Now he smiled, his mouth as hard as his eyes. He stepped, closing the space between us, gripping my face in his hand, tipping my chin, up, sharply. _Look at him. Look at him._  
  
His touch. His eyes. _god._ It made me hot.  
  
“Agat,” he laughed, shaking his head in amusement at my feeble parry.   
“Need I remind you? _I know exactly what you like._ ”  
  
_the fucking arrogance the fucking arrogance_  
  
He’s never fucking _wrong._  
  
He peered at my eyes, my face, examining.   
  
I’d been crying. Just a little while ago. Even if he hadn’t watched me doing it, he would see the evidence on my face now.  
  
I felt his eyes stealing over my skin, probing the sensitive spots where Julian had picked the hairs away.  
  
Gently, he voiced a softly stated question.  
_“He hurt you.”_  
  
  
  
  
I had to pause and stare at him, to play that back to myself and soundly comprehend the outrageous brilliance with which this mother fucker sinuously wielded the silky weapon of his goddamned melodious fucking beautiful voice.  
  
  
  
  
_are you. FUCKING. kidding me._  
  
_are you out of your goddamned FUCKING mind._  
  
_we’re not throwing Julian under the bus._  
  
_Julian doesn’t pay for what YOU did, for what YOU do._  
  
  
  
  
I snarled at him, through his hand that gripped me.  
_“Julian doesn’t hurt me.”_  
  
He purred, sarcastically, knowingly.   
“Ah yes – Julian, ‘Julian’. Of course _Julian_ doesn’t hurt you.”  
  
He tightened his hold on my face.   
_“He wouldn’t know how.”_  
  
Where did my next voice come from? I was gathered now, I had menace of my own. I bared my teeth and growled through them.  
_“Get your hand off me.”_  
  
“Why?” he sang.  
His eyes narrowed. “ _Oh, I see…”_  
  
Singing even more sweetly. “You _want_ ‘Julian’ to hurt you.”   
Whispering. _“I’d love to see him try.”_  
  
  
  
_try THIS, mother fucker_  
  
  
  
One of my hands whipped up and struck his forearm with mine, struck his arm, the arm attached to the hand on my face – my forearm struck his with power, with anger, ripping his hand off my face.  
  
My other hand slapped his face. Slapped his _fucking_ face. Slapped him _fucking_ hard.  
  
_FUCK YOU, fucker._  
  
_fuck you HARD, that was good for me_  
  
His face had turned to the side when I slapped it. Now he brought it back to stare at me. Ooh, the menace in his eyes was alight with energy. He was _on_ , some kind of on.  
  
“Did you like that, Agat?”  
“ _Fuck yes,_ I liked that!”  
  
“Then do it again.”  
I did it again. _Fucking_ slapped him. _YES._  
  
“Again.”  
_FUCK_ , yes. He wanted it. He fucking wanted it.  
  
“ _Yes,_ Agat _._ Again!”   
I slapped him. “ _DON’T_ tell me what to do!”  
  
“Hit me, Agat. Hit me.”  
I hit him. _“Don’t FUCKING tell me what to do!! SHUT UP! SHUT THE FUCK UP!”_  
  
Like hell he would shut up.  
“DO IT, Agat. Hit me!”  
  
I shoved him. On his armor.  
_“_ NO! Fucking _RESIST ME!”_  
  
“ _HIT ME_.”  
I slapped his face again. This time he grunted.  
  
I grabbed for one of his sleeves and clutched it while slapping him, maybe twice, maybe a lot more than twice. His breath hissed from his nose in short disciplined bursts, punctuating his grunts, as he took my slaps.  
  
_“STOP IT! STOP IT!”_  
I pounded my fists on his armor, losing it, losing it. He was always more _powerful_ than me, never _wrong_ , never _impenetrable_.   
  
_“STOP IT! STOP IT! Fucking HURT me! It’s WHAT YOU DO! You HURT me! Fucking HURT ME! HURT ME!”_  
  
He started grabbing for me, trying to catch my arms now, intending to hold them, he got them, he held them, I struggled, I started to cry again.  
  
I felt the shift, I felt his control. He’d taken control. He had me. He was stronger than me. I fought him, I fought him, he wouldn’t let me pound him anymore.  
  
I kept trying, with my fists, with the sides of my fists, with my arms. He was so _strong_. I cried. I screamed at him to just fucking _hurt_ me. I managed to work my arms closer to him, not out of his grasp, just closer to him, grazing his armor, finally _grating_ on his armor. I pressed my arms against his armor and grated against its rougher surfaces as hard as I could, rubbing, grating, striking raw wet fire into my skin, scraping the burns on him, scraping blood – _good, good, good_ – see how this _hurts_ , see how this _hurts_ me, how you _hurt_ me, _LOOK FUCKER, you hurt me you hurt me you hurt me_  
  
_“Agat! Agat!”_ he called, through my pain, my rage, my fury. _“Agat!”_  
He was strong and had my arms. He pulled them away from his armor to look and see what I had done to them.   
Horrified, he breathed my name. _“Agat!”_  
  
Power, too much power, I couldn’t match his power. He restrained me. I didn’t want it, I didn’t want it.  
  
I screamed, I struggled. _“Let me go! Let me go!”_  
crying, screaming, dizzy, distraught  
_“Let me go! Let me go!”_  
  
He released me. I sunk to the floor in front of him, folding myself over my knees, pounding the floor with my fists, with my arms, they hurt now, my arms hurt, I pounded the floor where they hurt. I cried, I cried hard. I groaned my cries.  
  
_“Agat!”_  
  
I felt, I heard – a crash, a thud – something crash-thudded on the floor over to the side – what was it? I felt it hit the floor, through my pounding and crying I felt it, heard it.  
  
I turned my face to the side. What was it?  
  
  
  
_his armor_  
  
  
  
I turned my face back to him, lifted it to peek. I saw him detach the _thing_ from his wrist, the thing that had called him away from me, the thing he’d left me for. He flung it from him too, to the floor.  
  
I lifted my face yet a little higher, looking, what would he do? I saw him lower himself to me, join me, knees on the floor with me, offering himself.  
  
He opened his arms wide, beckoning me with his arms and his unarmored chest.  
With his hands he gestured to me. _Come. Come._  
  
  
  
  
_I’d known this_  
_long ago before the memory sack_  
_before the rocks_  
  
_the deep magic_  
  
_the lion said there was a magic deeper still_  
_that the witch did not know_  
  
  
  
It would end me to resist this, to resist him. I crawled to him.  
  



	10. Chapter 10

_Love_  
  
  
  
He made me feel like he loved me and I loved him.  
  
I crawled to him, to where he knelt. Just before collapsing again I raised a hand and pushed him gently against his midsection so he would sit back on his heels. I melted face forward onto his lap, holding him somewhere – around his thighs or hips or where his thighs meet his hips, I don’t know. Just around him. Around his warm full strength, his muscles, his man-ness, his power, his thighs.   
  
I loved him.  
That’s just a feeling I’m reporting.   
  
He melted me. He melted me by calling me into his _magic deeper still_ embrace. I couldn’t even make it all the way into that embrace, to his chest, into his arms. I could only drag my undone self onto his thighs.   
  
But I loved him there. I loved him on his thighs. I loved him.  
  
I don’t want to stop writing that I loved him. The words feel good to me.   
  
It was just a consuming feeling. I knew it wasn’t true, wasn’t real. But I couldn’t help longing to tell him anyway.   
  
_I love you_. _I love you. I love you._  
_Please know I love you. Please know it even though I can’t tell you._  
_I’m sorry I can’t tell you. I’m sorry I can’t hug you._  
_I still love you._  
_I’m sorry._  
  
He stroked my head. With strong hands he stroked. He stroked and soothed as I wet his thighs with my tears.   
  
I couldn’t tell him I loved him, I choked on the words.   
But I clung to him and cried and asked him why he left me, why, why did you leave me like that?   
  
I told him it killed me when he left me.   
It killed me when you left me. _Why did you have to kill me?_  
  
I didn’t think he could hear my questions. I was speaking into his thighs. I was crying. My words should have been muffled, broken.   
  
  
  
But he did hear, and I heard him answer.  
_“I never wanted to kill you.”_  
  
  
  
We must have been speaking past each other again, as when he’d thought I was Kira. I knew I spoke past him. I knew he wasn’t my father, even though – as with my father – I couldn’t hug him, I couldn’t say _I love you_ to him.   
  
His words sounded almost apologetic. Maybe I could borrow them, hold their heart for myself. He sounded _sincere_. Not threatening. Loving.  
  
It made me feel like I loved him when he sounded this way, when he held me this way. It felt good to love him with my lips, with my hands. I loved his thighs. I started to kiss them. I could feel their vitality through the fabric he wore. He was warm and full of strength. He felt beautiful. I rubbed my face on his thighs, drying my tears. I pushed myself up to look at him.   
  
He still wanted me to hear him, hear that he never wanted to kill me. He repeated the words to me. I saw a mark in his eyes, what I’d seen in Julian’s, what I’d seen in mine – that self-damning wound. He was hurting. I didn’t want him to hurt.   
  
Don’t hurt. _I can’t say it but I love you_  
  
I climbed onto his lap now, to draw closer to him. I straddled him, clutching his neck ridges to get myself balanced. I moved my hands to either side of his face and held him gently while I kissed his eye ridges. I wanted him to feel better. I couldn’t tell him I loved him but maybe I could tell him something true.   
  
I kissed him and breathed what was in me.  
_“I don’t hate you.”_  
  
He lifted his eyes to mine, his eyes with the wound.   
_“Why would you hate me?”_  
  
_you’re not even a fucker right now you’re just Gul Dukat_  
_goddammit_  
_just fucking Gul Dukat_  
  
I answered through kisses on his face.  
“Because you hurt me.”  
  
He tightened his arms around my waist, where they already held me.  
“Where did I hurt you? Show me.”  
  
I paused my kisses to search in his eyes again. It looked to me as though _apology_ returned my gaze from their depths.  
  
_I’ll take it. I’ll take as much as you have for me._  
_Apologize to me._  
  
I showed him my wrists. Not the damage from his armor. My wrists from before, when he’d bored his fingers into my bones and said he would break me.  
  
He moved his arms from my waist, taking my wrists in his hands. He chose one to be first and he kissed it, and kissed it, and kissed it. His kisses felt warm, soft, deep, gentle. His lips blessed me. He watched me as he blessed me. Now my other wrist. He kissed his apology onto it – kissed it, and kissed it, and kissed it – blessed it with his lips, watched me. It was good.  
  
_My face, you hurt my face._  
  
I brought my hands to my face. My right hand to my cheek, my left to my jaw. I showed him my face. _You hurt me here._  
  
He brought his lips to my cheek, he warmed it, he blessed it, he kissed it and kissed it and kissed it.  
  
No.  
  
No. Not enough. Not enough.  
  
I took his face in my hands again, pushed him back so I could see him.   
I made him look at me. _“Look at me. Look at me.”_  
  
He looked. I waited until he understood me, saw me.  
I waited a few breaths longer. Then I told him what I wanted from him.  
  
  
“I want you to lick me.”  
  
  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> OK I probably took a risk by referencing C.S. Lewis' The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe.
> 
> I believe Lewis' 'magic deeper still' referred to sacrificial atoning love.
> 
> I use it here to mean pure father love, available daddy love - free from the hands of the 'witch'. 
> 
> When I was a girl, I drank in the words of Aslan, the lion. He felt warm and safe and powerful. I wished I could burrow into his side, into his fur.


	11. Chapter 11

_Lick_  
  
  
  
It held meaning, his lick. It held meaning for me. I knew what the hell I was asking him for. No. Not asking. Requiring. Requiring of him. If apology breathed in his eyes, he would speak it with his tongue. He would lick me.  
  
He’d hurt me in Ops, on the floor. He’d hurt me in a way I couldn’t get out of my heart, out of my body. He would wash it from me. He would clean it. He would dissolve it. He would take it out, take it back. He would lick me.  
  
He hadn’t just hurt me. He had interrogated me. He had punished me. He had shamed me. And he had betrayed me. With his tongue, with his love’s touch that wasn’t love. With his tongue that told me _I have every right, I have every right to end you._ Now he would restore me. He would lick me.  
  
Maybe the only way to understand this is if you could have been inside me when he did it to me, on the floor, in Ops. I know you couldn’t. Nobody could. Not even he could. He _wasn’t_ inside me, he didn’t know what he was doing.  
  
Hera buried me. She suffocated me, she buried me alive. She suffocated me with interrogation, with punishment. She made me show her myself, tell her everything, after I’d been with my father. _Look at me. Tell me. Show me. Did you say you love him? You die now. Did you show it? Did you put your arms around him? You die now. You made me kill you. It’s your fault, you did it. You asked for this. Look at me when I speak to you. Look at me. Don’t disagree with me. Don’t fight me. Don’t talk back to me. Don’t cry to save yourself. Don’t whimper. Don’t disagree with me. Show me. Agree with me. You exist for me. Not for your father, not for you. Only for me. Nothing you are is yours._  
  
It’s what he did to me. He buried me on the floor. He caressed me with his hand, he raised my waves with the wind of his hand, roiled my sea, stirred it, whipped it, and then he took it from me, stole it from my eyes, interrogated me with his eyes, so _he_ could have it, _he_ could have my waves, he could have my tossing on the waves. He withheld his permission to _release_ myself to them, to drift and fall, float and sink, on the waves _he_ created, on the waves _he_ agitated into being. Punished me for responding, for feeling it, for wanting it, for fearing it, for resisting it, punished me for my voice, my dissent, my existing. _He_ did it, and I believed I had _made_ him do it, that I was _wrong_ , he was _right_.   
  
And then he had betrayed me, with his breath, with his tongue. He didn’t lick me to taste me, to love me, to save me. He licked me to own me, to end me, to hate me. I only ever loved him with _my_ tongue. My tongue means love. I lick his throat, his scales, his treasure, to _feel_ him, to _taste_ him, to _love_ him. Not to hate him. Not to hate him. I love him with my tongue. And he broke me with his. He hurt me. This is how he hurt me.  
  
Now he would love me. Now he would save me. Now he would lick me.  
  
It was good, it was good. His breath was close to me now, on my skin, hot, soft, tender, close. I heard the wet sliding of his tongue. It was a good sound. It was soft, it was him, it was deeply him, his tongue. He _gave_ me of himself, with his tongue. I made him taste me, know me, love me, restore me, be close to me, not leave me, not leave me. Wash me, love me, lick me.   
  
This was on my right side. I’d shown him my jaw, but I decided to skip it for after my neck. I knew his tongue on my jaw would end me too quickly, so I saved it for last. I held his face in my hands again while I turned my head to the right so he could lick my neck.   
  
“My neck,” I whispered. “you hurt my neck.”  
  
This was good too. He laid his tongue on my neck and warmed it and washed it. It was good, it was good. His breath on my neck, it was good. His hot wet tongue on my skin, it was…it was…  
  
_It was fucking hot,_ is what it was. Are you wondering how I made it this long? So am I. _oh holy mother of god in heaven I couldn’t take it any longer_  
  
He was hard under me, I’d felt him growing, of course I’d felt him, of course I had. I can’t straddle him while he licks me without losing my mind. I’d already been rocking my hips against him for who knows how long before I knew I couldn’t take his apologies any longer. My body wanted one thing – one thing only, in response to his tongue – to open my legs and receive his treasure. That’s what my body wanted. It didn’t care about any apologies, it didn’t care about being buried alive, it wanted him, wanted him _now_ , my jaw would be okay, it would be _okay._  
  
I couldn’t wait any longer, he turned me on so hard, I’d been _grinding_. I was going to lose it. I pushed him so he’d lie down, lie on his back, on the floor, right here on the floor.   
  
He had to get his legs out from under himself, fine, fine, get them out, okay lie down right here, lie down lie down.  
  
I straddled him and rode him, yes I humped him again, it works, it works for me, it makes me come, _oh godddddd yesssss I took him on the floor I had him on the floor it was my floor now my fucking floor you fucking god you beautiful fucking fucking god feel me feel me I want you to feel me I’m having you_  
  
I was loud. It was my floor. I made all the fucking noise I fucking wanted to.   
  
_I know exactly what I like._  
  
When I finished I sat straddling him, drinking in the solid feel of his body between my legs. I peeled off my shirt, my bra, flung them over at his armor, over there. I bared myself to him.   
  
_“You hurt me everywhere.”_ I panted.  
  
Oh, his eyes were gleaming now. He glowed.   
Oh, my dark and glowing god.   
  
_Do me, Dukat, do me. Do me now, do me hard._  
  
I trembled, I shook.   
_I couldn’t want him any harder._  
  
“Agat. Let’s get on your bed. It’ll feel better.”  
  
_fuck me yes anywhere you want_  
  
I got off of him, so dizzy. I was going to let him up.  
I laughed.  
  
“What?” he started laughing too.  
“It’s just – you’re like, fully clothed. Your boots are on.”  
  
I couldn’t stop laughing. It was funny, something about his boots. I was almost naked and he still had boots on, pants, top, everything. Everything but the armor and the _thing_.   
  
“Come on. Take it all off. _You’re so beautiful._ I want to see you. Show me. I love your body. _My god, I love your body._ ”  
  
All truth, all of it. I loved speaking truth to him, it felt so good.  
  
He seemed a little shy at my words, perhaps. Smiling sweetly. I don’t know if people say things to him that way, very often. _Any_ way I could tell him I loved him, I would.  
  
I watched him remove his clothes, my eyes singing, my heart pounding, my belly fluttering. Nothing but _treasure_ under there, treasure, fragrance, scales, beauty, strength, power, warmth.   
  
Fuckable, so fuckable.  
  
Get on my bed, sweetie, get on my bed. I didn’t have much to remove. A skirt. Underwear. Done. Let me have you.  
  
I wanted him in me now, _now._ But not yet. Not yet. I didn’t want him to finish. I wanted him so badly, so much of him.   
  
He resumed his position from the floor, on his back on my bed.  
  
_Where do I start_  
How about just all over him, all over him.  
  
I poured myself on top of him, straddling him, not putting him in me, just sliding myself on him, feeling him, feeling his length, his smoothness along his length. Making him wet with me. I took his mouth, I gathered it to myself, we kissed each other deeply, his arms around me, god his embrace it’s like whiskey it warms me it dizzies me it wraps me.   
He stroked his warm hands all over me where he wrapped me, all over my back. I wanted his hands on my ass, his strong hands, but it could wait it could wait. I held his hair and felt its texture, its softness, its him-ness, I ran my hands all over his neck, his throat, his scales, his ridges, his collarbones. I enjoyed him, we kissed.  
  
I pulled back a little, up from him. I wanted to tell him something. Oh but first let me rub my breasts on you, on your beautiful chest with its coiled strength and its scales. _ahhhhh_ my breasts love you sweetie, they love you.   
  
I looked at him. “You know what I love?”  
No idea. “What?”  
“I love your treasure.”  
I laughed at his eyes. So deliciously uncomprehending.   
  
_Let me show you._  
  
I scooted down so I straddled him on the lower part of his legs, I rubbed my breasts on his thighs. Oh I kissed his thighs. Oh every part of him is delicious. His thighs are like whiskey if whiskey was food. Oh they’re good. I could kiss these for a good long time, so warm, so yummy. I could _lick_ them, _oh god_ I could lick them.  
  
But his _treasure._ I’d missed his treasure. I’d waited for it. My tongue had yearned for it, cried for it. Here it was, here was his treasure.  
  
I took it in my hand. _Oh sweetie, you came back, you came back to me._  
I looked up at him. He watched.   
I kissed it. A long kiss, an eyes-closed kiss, a breathing-him-in-through-my-nose kiss, an I-love-you kiss.   
“Your treasure,” I kissed it all over. “I love your treasure. _Mmmmm…_ ”  
  
I looked. His eyes were shining.   
Shine for me, shine for me.  
  
_you like my tongue I’m going to lick you now_  
  
My tongue was going to have him finally, feel him, taste him, have him, love him, what else could it want, ever, ever. I gave him to my tongue. _ohhhhhh yes he’s good he’s so good_  
  
“Your treasure tastes so good, _fuck_ it tastes so good.”   
_Licking, licking, warm, wet, like nothing else._  
  
“It feels so good to me.”  
_Rubbing him on my face, on my cheeks, oh he’s so good so warm, so thick so hard_  
  
I was ready to suck him. He knew it, he saw it.   
He said, “Agat, Agat, wait, wait.”  
  
I panted up at him. _I have to have you in me I have to_  
He knew. “Come here.”  
“How?”  
  
He showed me how. He got me turned around so I straddled him backwards. He pulled my hips to bring me all the way to his mouth. _Here, like this, like this, Agat._ He kissed me.   
  
_ohhhhhhh my god I’d never done that before with anyone oh god oh god ohhhhh goddddd don’t kill me I want to live for this, for this, don’t kill me_  
  
“Agat.”  
“Yeah?”  
“You can go ahead and suck me now.”  
  
_say no more I’m on it I’m all over it_  
I slid him all the way in, hungry, starving, all the way to my throat, oh my god the best thing ever  
  
No. No! Not the best thing ever. No.   
His _groans._  
  
Oh his groans had been so good on my tongue, on the balcony, _his groans_  
  
_but now_  
_but now_  
  
But now he pressed his groans _into me from his tongue,_ he blessed all my love back _into me,_ all my love from my lips, my lips on his treasure.   
He kissed all my love into me, he breathed it, avowed it.   
  
As I raised my lips to the heaven of sliding over him and stroking him and sucking him, he told me how it felt to him, he moaned to me how much he loved it.   
  
He loved it deeply, he licked it, he sucked it, he sucked me, he kissed me, kissed, kissed, sucked, kissed, licked, _licked_.   
  
He worshiped me with his hands as he kissed me, _his strong hands,_ he caressed my cheeks, my flesh, he palmed my skin warmly while he licked me and kissed me.  
  
_“Agat your lips are good…goooood…ohhhhhh Agat…Agat…your lips…ahhhhhhh…Agat…Agat…Agat...”_ he breathed, licking his confession of love, he loved it.   
  
I loved hearing it. I loved his words, I loved his moans, his breath, his licks, the warm passion of his hands on my ass. I loved his treasure filling all the space in my mouth, pressing against the roof of it, against my tongue, _so thick and powerful,_ taking me over, consuming me. He couldn’t consume me enough, I wanted to be so filled with him.   
I took my mouth off him long enough to lick him all around on his beautiful scales, his fragranced scales. I made them as wet as possible and then stroked him there with my hand when I got him back in my mouth.   
Now I loved _all_ of him, I hugged his whole length with my warm hand, my warm mouth.   
  
I loved to love him, I loved to love him while he loved me too.   
  
I’d added my hand for him – he added his now, he rubbed warmly, oh god _fingers – oh god in heaven he added fingers_.   
_unfair unfair I can never fuck YOU the way that makes me want you to fuck ME now_  
  
He teased me, cruelly. Didn’t he know his fingers were deliciously invasive but nowhere as devastating as I knew his treasure would be – backed by his _power,_ his _thrusts?_  
  
His deliberate fingers made me want him to get behind me and _pound_ me, fucking _DESTROY_ me, _I wanted it_ – but oh, if only I could suck his delicious treasure _WHILE_ he pounded me _how much better how much better_  
  
A dilemma. How could I suck his treasure if he pounded me with it? How could he pound me if I sucked him? How had this become my greatest problem?   
  
I loved this problem, it was such sweet trouble, such delicious logic quicksand. I would die in it but it would be so good, _so fucking good._  
  
Or maybe it wouldn’t. As quicksand does, it would kill – but so slowly, so tragically. To suffocate and die, feeling like safety is so close at hand but can’t be reached.   
  
It _hurts_ to want something so badly, want something you can never have.   
  
It _hurts_ me to know I can’t suck him while he fucks me – I know that’s nuts but you have to understand I fucking lose my mind with his treasure in my mouth! It makes me want him both ways at once, no every way, _every_ way all at once, all the time, _all_ the time.   
  
He’d think I was _crazy_ if I told him that. Wouldn’t he?   
  
He’d have to rip me off his treasure if he was going to fuck me. I didn’t have the strength to do it. I’d have to get his attention somehow, make him understand, he had to fuck me, he had to fuck me _NOW._ But it would kill me to leave his treasure.   
_Help me, help me._  
I sucked him in my agony, in my desperation, in my longing, in my need. I filled my mouth with him, _god he’s everything he’s everything_  
  
I moaned for him to fuck me, but he couldn’t hear my words, they drowned on his treasure, moaning wouldn’t do it.  
  
My hips, my hips could tell him. But they were already speaking, they had a mind of their own, they knew what they wanted, returning the insistence of his fingers, affirming the statements of his mouth. They couldn’t speak for me, they had their own agenda, get his mouth, get his fingers, _get more, get more._  
  
_okay gather myself_  
_gather, gather_  
  
I freed my mouth just long enough. _“fuck me”,_ I gasped, before diving back in, back to his treasure.  
  
_don’t think he got that it’s okay try again gather myself no suck him suck him feel him suck him oh god_  
  
_Why_ was I trying to separate myself from his treasure, what cruelty was this that I wanted to inflict on myself, _what cruelty what cruelty_  
  
_“FUCK me, PLEEEASE!”_  
_groaning, licking, sucking, wanting_  
_oh god so dizzy dizzy_  
  
I got myself off of him by sheer will and determination.   
  
I got off, I wounded-soldiered myself off of him just far enough to be next to him, elbows and knees on the bed, asking for him, _begging_ for him, please, _please_ get behind me, please take me _PLEASE TAKE ME I ache for you oh god I ACHE FOR YOU_  
  
He got the message, he moved, he got on his knees behind me, he readied his hands on my hips.  
  
“Wait, wait,” I told him, _“wait, hold on – ”_  
I turned my head back and looked at him.   
  
_oh god how fucking delicious oh god_  
  
“Slap me. Slap me hard. _Please._ ”  
  
He grinned.  
_oh god yes_  
  
He slapped.   
_ahhhhh godddd no no no_  
  
“ _HARDER!_ Come on, hit me, _HIT ME come on fucking HIT ME_ ”  
  
He slapped again. A little harder.  
  
I wiggled my ass, I was going to scream and fight him until he hit me how I wanted it.  
  
_“harder harder HIT ME hit me HARD”_  
_come on I want your punishment I want it now I want it now_  
  
_“PLEASE! PLEASE!”_ I cried, _“please,”_ I moaned, _“hit me hard hit me hard”_  
  
He gave in, he had mercy, he fucking hit me so hard _OH MY GOD so HARD, I screamed,_ he fucking _HIT_ my ass over and over and over, _his fucking strong hand_ , his hand, his hand, he hit, he hit, _OHHHHH_ I must have been red, it was hard it was good it was loud it was rough it was _HIM_ , _I cried I cried I cried oh god it HURT SO GOOD he’s so powerful_  
  
When he’d reduced me to crying and screaming and shaking and my face to the mattress, then he held my cheeks with purpose – he took them he pulled them he spread them, he shoved himself in me, _no mercy, no mercy_ , so good so hard, he killed me he killed me, _OH GOD SO HARD_ this man can pound a woman, he can pound, he can pound, _OH FUCK ME_ he can pound – fuck me _HARD_ he can pound –   
  
_“ hard! hard! hard! ”_ screaming to the mattress _harder harder_  
I felt him understanding my words, my screams, he gave, he gave, he gave, hard, hard, hard  
  
I didn’t want to be myself. I wanted to be whatever _this_ was, that he was reducing me to, _this this_ – _I don’t know myself I don’t hear myself I don’t have to be myself –_ just _him,_ just _him_ , just _him,_ he’s all there is, he’s _everything, everything, everything_  
  
He fucked me dizzy, he fucked me blind, he fucked me _so good._ He made me _come_ it was so good, thank the heavens I came before he did, I’d have _DIED_ if he’d left me unfinished like this, oh god _I’d have died I’d have died,_ but I didn’t, I _came_ as I screamed, as he fucked, as he pounded, _oh god_  
  
I felt his rhythm adjust at last, it slowed perceptibly, somehow his deep deep plunging got even more deep, more smooth, more deliberate, more steady, more right, more inevitable – I knew what it meant, I went there with him – _it was good, it was good_ – come sweetie, come sweetie, _come, come, come_  
  
He pulled out swiftly and slayed me with his drops of sweetness, his hot slaying sweetness all over my back, in my hair – I wanted him in my hair, _it was good._ He groaned so sweetly, so loudly, his body jerked – _groan for me, groan for me, jerk for me – come on me, come on me, ALL OVER ME, YESSSSS_ – so hot, so good, so gentle his love _yessssss_  
  
“Stay there,” he told me. He found my bathroom and got a towel, made it wet and warm, he came back – he had a dry one too, he cleaned me off. It felt so good, a warm fuzzy backrub. I lay shaking on my bed as he cleaned me off. _So relaxed – so done, so done so good._  
  
He lay on me as I shook. He just poured his whole body over me, he sprawled over my back. I felt his weight, so good, so warm. My face to the side. His lips on my cheek. He kissed me. He kept kissing me. He kissed my cheek. He lifted my hair so he could kiss my neck in the damp heat under my hair. He blessed my neck with his deep warm lips, so manly, so _him_.   
  
I felt he would relax and fall asleep on me.   
That would be okay. I could breathe.   
I felt good under him.  
  
_Sleep, sweetie, sleep._  
_When you wake up let’s fuck more._  
_I love you, I want you._  
  



End file.
